Riverwalk
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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You can use Fetch for any vet in the U.S. and Canada. All vets are in network. Go to fetchpet.com slash save right now for your free quote. That's fetchpet.com slash save. On November 28, 2019, 19-year-old Zach Brettler was living at home with his parents in London. He told his mother, Rochelle, he was going to spend the weekend with a friend.
Just to chill out, he told her he was a little stressed out and he was going to do a phone detox.
He told her he was going to be staying in a part of London just a few miles away, in a fancy apartment complex called Riverwalk.
And so, as far as Rochelle knew, that was where he would be.
journalist Patrick Radden Keefe. Zach's friend came to pick him up. And after he left, Rochelle realized Zach had left his keys and credit cards behind. His mother thought that was really odd.
And so she just texted him and she said, you know, I'm so worried about you. Are you okay? If you've gone away for the weekend, you know, aren't you going to need your keys and your wallet? Is everything going to be all right? And hours later, he texted back,
And he just wrote, all good, X. The next morning, Rochelle was at home alone. Her husband, Matthew, was on a business trip. Around 9.30 a.m., she heard the doorbell ring.
And there was a man that she didn't know standing on the doorstep. A guy who was a kind of middle-aged man. He was black. He was elegantly dressed in a suit and a bright tie. And... She thought he looked maybe like a chauffeur, like a driver of some sort. And he was holding a phone and the phone had somebody on speaker. And she came to the door and he said, is Zach home? And she said, no, he's not. Who are you? And he said, who are you? She was a little taken aback. And she said, well, I'm his mom. And at this point, she heard a voice from the phone in this guy's hand. And she could hear this voice say, that can't be his mom. His mom's in Dubai. And she was totally startled. She'd never been to Dubai. But before she could ask any questions, the guy on the doorstep turned around, got into a Range Rover, and drove away.
After he left, Rochelle tried to call Zach, but her call went straight to voicemail. Then she called her husband, Matthew.
They ended up calling the police. They had a kind of premonition that something might be very wrong.
I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.
When Zach Brettler was a little kid, his parents described him as bright and a little quirky.
What happened to Zac Brettler in November 2019?
He was always a bit of a smart aleck. He was a great talker. He was the kid who would put on funny voices. He had a kind of theatricality to him. He would tell jokes. He was always very at ease talking to adults, even when he was a kid. And so he was kind of fun to be around in that respect. You know, he had a sort of slightly jazzy style of conversation. You know, sometimes you encounter somebody and they're just kind of fun to talk to because you never know quite what they're going to come out with next. And he had a confidence to him, even as a really young kid.
His older brother Joe remembers that once at a family party, when Zach was around five, a girl showed something to Zach and asked him, "'Can you read this?' Zach told her, "'I didn't bring my glasses.'" He used to memorize the electronic sections from shopping catalogs and loved cars, especially fancy sports cars.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–3:56
2
What happened to Zac Brettler in November 2019?
3:56–8:55
3
How did Zac's parents react to his disappearance?
8:55–19:25
4
What was Zac's life like before he went missing?
19:25–39:22
5
What kind of relationships did Zac have with his friends?
39:22–49:41